Nancy Guthrie Update: Ransom Note in Nancy Guthrie Case Claimed She Died Shortly After Disappearance

A ransom note related to the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie, the mother of Today show host Savannah Guthrie, said the 84-year-old had died, it has been reported.

CNN reported that one of the notes said that Guthrie was dead — and those who kidnapped her did not mean to kill her but she died shortly after her disappearance.

Some media outlets had previously reported receiving ransom notes tied to the case in the days after Guthrie's disappearance in early February from her home in the foothills just outside Tucson. CNN said it knew the contents of one such note and that a Tucson TV station had received two notes.

CNN and the station agreed to hold off on sharing the contents of the notes publicly so any future communications with the kidnapper or kidnappers could be authenticated, CNN reported.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department declined to comment on the note's contents. The FBI did not respond to a request for comment. And the Guthrie family did not make any immediate social media posts or any public comments about the notes on Monday.

The Tucson Station's Account

Jessica Bobula, news director for the Tucson TV station KOLD, said that the station received several notes after Guthrie disappeared. The station notified authorities and has shared only what the FBI has released about the notes, she said.

What Led Investigators to Believe She Was Kidnapped

Authorities believe Guthrie was kidnapped, abducted, or otherwise taken against her will after finding blood near her front doorstep. The FBI later released surveillance videos showing a masked man on the porch that night.

Search Efforts in the Desert Terrain

Volunteers and search teams scoured the nearby desert terrain filled with cactuses, bushes, and boulders in the weeks after she vanished. A volunteer group recently conducted a search for her body near the Arizona-Mexico border but did not report finding her.

An Investigation Now Stretching Past Four Months

Guthrie's disappearance, which occurred in early February, has now stretched well beyond four months without a confirmed suspect or resolution, despite the extensive efforts of investigators and volunteer search teams across the desert region surrounding her Tucson home. The case has drawn sustained national attention given Savannah Guthrie's profile as a national television anchor, with developments in the investigation — including the doorbell camera footage of the masked individual and now the contents of the ransom notes — continuing to generate widespread public interest.

The Significance of the Note's Timing Claim

If accurate, the note's claim that Guthrie died "shortly after her disappearance" would mark one of the most significant pieces of information to emerge in the case so far, suggesting that whoever sent the communication was asserting knowledge of events that occurred in the immediate aftermath of the abduction itself. That claim, however, has not been independently verified by law enforcement, and authorities have not confirmed whether they consider the notes credible or whether the assertions within them reflect what investigators believe actually happened to Guthrie.

A Deliberate Strategy to Preserve Future Verification

The decision by both CNN and the Tucson television station to withhold the specific contents of the notes reflects a common investigative practice in cases involving ransom communications, where revealing exact wording or details prematurely could compromise law enforcement's ability to verify the authenticity of any future messages purportedly from the same source. By keeping those specifics confidential, both outlets and investigators preserve a method of confirming whether subsequent communications genuinely originate from whoever sent the original notes, rather than from copycats or others seeking to insert themselves into the case.

With authorities declining to comment on the note's contents and the FBI not responding to requests for comment, the question of whether Guthrie is alive or deceased remains officially unresolved, even as the specific claim within the reported note adds a grim new dimension to a case that has already spanned more than four months. Search efforts, including the recent volunteer search near the Arizona-Mexico border that did not report finding her body, are likely to continue in the weeks ahead as investigators work to either corroborate or rule out the claims made in the ransom communications. Anyone with information related to Nancy Guthrie's disappearance is urged to contact the FBI or the Pima County Sheriff's Department, with substantial reward money remaining available for information leading to a resolution of the case.